Recently, in State v. Kurokawa-Lasciak, 237 Or App 492, 239 P3d 1046 (2010), we reviewed the somewhat irregular development of case law since Brown dealing with the automobile exception and summarized the current status of the exception as follows:

"At present, a vehicle is 'mobile' for purposes of the automobile exception as long as it is operable. That is so even if it is evident that the vehicle will be impounded, unless the impoundment procedures have actually commenced. Further, police can search a vehicle pursuant to the automobile exception even if, at the time the officers first focus on the vehicle, they have no suspicion of criminal activity. Situations in which the exception does not apply include those in which the vehicle is functionally disabled, those in which the vehicle is impounded or in the process of being impounded, and those in which the officers do not focus attention on the vehicle until after they have established probable cause to detain the defendant[.]"

Id. at 497-98 (citations omitted; emphasis in original). "[A]pplicability of the automobile exception turns on the mobility of the vehicle when the police first encounter it. The inquiry is centered on the circumstances surrounding the moment when the police first notice or focus their attention on an automobile." State v. Coleman, 167 Or App 86, 94, 2 P3d 399 (2000) (emphasis in original).

Here, the vehicle was mobile at the moment the police first encountered and focused attention on it. Carroll first noticed the vehicle when he was driving behind it and ran a DMV check on its license plates--a time when the vehicle was not only operable, but actually in motion. Although at that point the officer had no suspicion of criminal activity and no probable cause to search the vehicle, as we noted in Kurokawa-Lasciak, that does not preclude the application of the exception. 237 Or App at 498. It is sufficient that probable cause developed later, after officers discovered the freshly deposited bindle and defendant conceded that there were probably drugs in the vehicle. As in Meharry, nothing happened between the time the officer first saw the vehicle and the time of the search that rendered the vehicle incapable of motion: the officer "had not impounded the [vehicle], and there was no physical or mechanical impediment to the [vehicle]'s being driven away[.]" 342 Or at 180. At the time probable cause to search the vehicle developed in this case, the vehicle was operable and not being impounded. See Kurokawa-Lasciak, 237 Or App at 499 (noting those facts). Accordingly, pursuant to the applicable case law, the warrantless search in this case came within the automobile exception and suppression was not required.